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Chapter Two
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For an instant, Dana thought she was falling. Her feet left the
relative safety and stability of the windowsill, and the bottom seemed
to drop out of her stomach, as if she were on a rollercoaster. The cool
night breeze was rushing by her ears, and she felt a growing sense of
panic --
And then as abruptly as it had started, it was over. The fear was gone,
and so was the vertigo. Dana cautiously opened her eyes -- and gasped.
She was flying.
More accurately, *they* were flying. Pan was still at her side, his
right hand resting on the small of her back, his left hand lightly
holding on to hers. The warmth of his body pressing against hers was
strange and exciting, and banished the chill she might otherwise have
been feeling.
Looking down, she saw that the ground was already more than a hundred
feet away, and was rapidly receding. For a moment she was disoriented;
it was dark, and she wasn't used to seeing her neighborhood from above.
The streetlamps made a grid of light against the darkness, like a
network of tiny diamonds, punctuated here and there by a lighted window.
Abruptly, her view of the ground was cut off, and Dana felt cool
moisture against her face. Her field of vision was restricted to only a
few yards, and all she could see was a mass of dark gray loops and
whorls. And Dana realized that they had flown into a cloud.
It was like being lost in the fog, she thought -- only more so. In the
fog, at least, she would have the ground beneath her feet, but now,
flying through the clouds, there was no sense of right or left, forward
or back, up or down. No sense of direction at all ....
Then as suddenly as they'd entered the cloud, they left it again. And
for the second time in less than a minute, Dana gasped in amazement.
They were above the clouds now, soaring ever upward into the night sky.
And what a night sky it was: the sky was clear as crystal, and the
stars shone down like thousands of multi-colored candles twinkling in
the darkness. The stars were so thick and bright that for a moment Dana
had trouble picking out the old, familiar constellations.
Gradually, things started to organize themselves into their accustomed
patterns -- but Dana only found herself growing more confused. Wasn't
that Lyra, low on the horizon? And off a little to the right -- that
was definitely Ophiuchus and Serpens, and that meant that they were
flying to the east ....
But those were *summer* constellations, and it was just barely spring.
It was impossible.
She turned her head to look at Pan, to see that he was looking back at
her, his face only inches from her own, a small smile tugging at the
corners of his mouth. "It's always the first day of summer in
Neverland, Wendy," he said, as if that explained everything.
Dana found herself openly staring at the boy. He really was remarkably
pretty, she thought -- despite his somewhat bizarre way of thinking.
The large, fleshy nose and full, almost feminine lips might have seemed
out of place on someone else, but on him, they were just right. And his
eyes ....
Tinkerbell chose that moment to reassert her presence, looping around
Dana and Pan in a fast barrel roll before flitting directly between the
two of them and zipping off into the distance. Dana followed the fairy
with her eyes until the tiny golden light was no longer visible, then
turned to look at Pan once again.
"That Tink," he chuckled. "Such a cut up."
Dana sighed; the moment -- whatever it had almost been -- was apparently
past. She looked away from Pan, and back in the direction they were
traveling. As best she could tell, based on those impossible stars,
they were still flying to the east. She shook her head, and said, "So
where are we going, anyway? I thought you wanted to look for your sister?"
"I do," he replied. Out of the corner of her eye, Dana saw that Pan was
now also looking straight ahead, the moment of near-intimacy apparently
completely forgotten. "But first we have to regroup. I want to show
you my hideout, and introduce you to the Lost Boys."
"The who?"
"The Lost Boys," he repeated patiently. "They're my men, and I'm their
captain. And you're gonna love 'em, Wendy! I just know it!"
Before she had a chance to respond Pan abruptly angled downwards, and
they started to descend at a rapid rate. Within seconds they had
plunged once more into the clouds, and Dana again felt the cool mists of
water vapor blowing against her face. Then they dived out into the open
air again --
Into bright sunlight, under a nearly cloudless sky.
Dana was somewhat hardened to impossible things by now, so she didn't
gasp, but simply shook her head in disbelief. She turned her head again
and craned her neck -- and, yes, the sky really was a brilliant blue, as
far as she was able to see. There were just a very few white, fluffy
clouds, way up in the sky -- nothing like the gray, threatening overcast
she and Pan had just flown through.
"Look, Wendy! There it is!"
Dana looked around to the front again, and saw that they were over the
ocean, and that they were rapidly approaching an island. It was roughly
circular, and heavily covered with dense, green jungle, and looked like
nothing quite so much as a brilliant emerald floating in a sea of
sapphire. As they drew closer she saw sparkling white beaches with
waves breaking along them --
"Look out!"
Dana's head whipped first one way, then the other, but even as she tried
to make out what had prompted Pan's shout, he was wrapping his arm
tightly around her waist and veering sharply up and to the right. She
heard the sharp, distant crack of an explosion; Pan changed course a
second time, and Dana had a brief, dizzying glimpse of what looked like
a sailing ship sitting just outside a small cove, far, far below. But
the ground was rapidly dropping away, and then the ship -- if it was a
ship -- twisted out of her line of vision, just as she and Pan plunged
into a cloud.
Almost immediately they burst out the other side, but now the cloud was
between them and the island, and all she could see down below was
water. They slowed to a stop, and then Pan guided her to the left,
skimming the surface of the cloud until they came to the very edge.
Cautiously, he peered out over and down, and after a brief hesitation,
Dana followed suit.
It *was* a sailing ship -- a Dutch flute, if she was reading the rigging
correctly from this distance. As they watched, a puff of smoke appeared
next to the ship, and there was another distant crack of what Dana now
realized was cannon fire. Was the ship shooting at them? If so, surely
they were safe here ... they were far out of any possible range.
"That's the Smoker's ship," Pan announced. Dana glanced over at the
boy, to see that he was also looking down at the vessel, a look of
excitement on his face. "I guess we got a little bit too close."
"The Smoker?"
"Yeah. The Smoker," Pan replied, sounding preoccupied as he continued
to peer down over the edge of the cloud. "The leader of the pirates.
He's the one who took my sister."
Dana felt her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "The Smoker took your
sister? Then why were you looking in my bedroom?"
Pan looked at her in apparent surprise. "Because it was someplace I
could get to," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the
world. He gestured down at the ship. "You fly too close to that ship,
and they shoot at you. You try to swim --" and here he shuddered "--
well, let's just say there are monsters in the water."
"Monsters?"
"Yeah." Pan said absently. He was once more staring intently down at
the ship, apparently calculating something. Finally, he nodded. "Looks
like they're done shooting at us for now." He tightened his grip around
her waist slightly, and together they slid down off the cloud and
resumed their flight towards the island.
Dana was finally growing accustomed to this flying thing. She still
didn't understand how it was possible -- she didn't understand how *any*
of this was possible. But there was no denying what she was seeing with
her own eyes, and one thing Ahab had drilled into her was that denying
facts because they failed to mesh with your preconceptions was
unacceptable. Of course, he probably hadn't had anything quite this
extreme in mind ... but the principle remained the same, in Dana's
estimation.
The cove with the pirate ship lay behind them, now, and they were
actually flying over the island, skimming low over the treetops. Pan
was no longer holding her quite so close, but merely had her hand
lightly clasped in his.
Dana remembered his earlier comment, that she could do this herself; she
wondered what would happen if she just let go for a minute? Would she
really be able to fly, all on her own? The very idea seemed ridiculous
-- but so did a lot of other things that had already happened tonight.
Or today, considering that it was now broad daylight. Whatever.
She glanced over at Pan again, and saw that he was paying no attention
to her at all. She wished she understood what the heck that was all
about; one minute he was crowding her personal space, and looking at her
with a fascination and intimacy that made her shudder inside -- and the
next he was totally ignoring her.
Dana wished he would just make up his mind which it was going to be.
She could deal with either one, but these lightninglike changes back and
forth were making her a little bit crazy. Or more than a little bit,
she amended. Of course, if it had to be one or the other, she knew
which one she'd choose ....
She shook her head and pushed the thought away. She wasn't going to get
into that, she told herself firmly. She'd just met this boy, after all,
and although he seemed strange and exciting, she really didn't know
anything about him. Besides, she wanted to find out if she really could
fly on her own. And so she took a deep breath, and, forcing her eyes to
stay open, she let go of Pan's hand.
And she didn't fall.
For a moment Dana felt giddy at the experience. She'd been flying for
quite some while now, but that had been under Pan's control and
guidance. And this ... this was completely independent. She was
actually doing it, all on her own.
She could fly.
She looked to one side, wanting to get Pan's attention and let him know
about her accomplishment -- but he wasn't there. Frowning, she turned
back to the front -- only to see Pan moving rapidly away from her. She
growled in annoyance, and increased her own speed in an effort to catch
up, but he was still pulling away, apparently completely oblivious to
the fact that she was no longer flying at his side.
Even as she felt the annoyance at his disregard building within her,
Dana found her own speed increasing. In a matter of seconds, she was no
longer falling behind; a few seconds more and she was actually starting
to catch up. She'd show him; she could fly just as fast as he could.
Faster, maybe.
She considered calling out to him, letting him know that she was
catching up. But that wouldn't be as satisfying. Better just to go
zooming past him, and let *him* try to catch *her*. She nodded
slightly, and increased her speed further. That was the way to do it,
she thought.
She was still gloating in anticipation when something struck her full in
the chest. Dana cried out in surprise, then doubled over in pain and
plummeted towards the ground.
================END CHAPTER TWO================